


friends beside me on this road

by kalypsobean



Category: A Simple Favor (2018)
Genre: 5 Things, F/F, Marking, Pining, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 00:58:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: AKA Five Things Emily Wanted To Do To Stephanie





	friends beside me on this road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingargents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/gifts).



1.

The sense that Emily gets of her, and Emily's really good at pegging people straight up, is that she's is the sunshine-and-roses type of good person that's never really had anything bad happen to her, and so can't help being that way. In another world would be some tragic kind of fairytale princess, saving herself through determination and virtue. In this one, she's everything Emily _isn't_ \- an attentive mother who gets things done, has control over her job, and is involved in her life in a way that makes Emily think she actually enjoys it and isn't just counting down until it's socially acceptable to start drinking.

It starts as a vague kind of curiosity, spawning from the idle kind of thought that passes just as quickly as someone can step out of view. _Oh, she's pretty, I wonder if..._ and _there she is again, I wonder..._ and _those clothes don't really suit her, I wonder if..._ float around on the rare occasion Emily actually makes it to the school. By the time there's a name to put to the face, they've congealed somehow into a coherent fantasy and become the kind of thought that is insistent, intrusive, and altogether inconvenient.

If she can just take Stephanie apart, figure out how she works, maybe she can be good like that too. Or fake it, because it looks really boring, but still.

 

2.

She starts with a martini, by which time she's already imagined slapping Stephanie twice (once just because and once, well, the last time that happened was in college). There's something amazing and kind of enticing about the way Stephanie stutters and seems to blank out over basic things, almost empowering, except that would mean Emily was coming from a place where she wasn't in control, and that's not true. It's intoxicating, and Emily mentally notes it all for later: the widening eyes, the biting of one side of her mouth, the wrinkled nose and rush to apologise yet again, the way she looks away and then back and anywhere else.

It's almost adorable how the most basic of things turns Stephanie into someone who isn't comfortable in her own skin; Emily strips from 'power suit' (emulating masculinity for her own professional gain is fun, but doesn't belong in her own house) to 'comfortable' and it's made arousing simply through how Stephanie can't seem to stop staring, like the act of coming home and relaxing is utterly foreign to her.

Stephanie is such a beautiful little blank canvas that it's hard to stop just with telling her to stop apologising. The preppy clothes need to go, the cutesy little habit of holding herself back needs to be trained out of her, and Emily longs to push her down and just take until Stephanie _relaxes_. There's hints of how wild Stephanie would be, and that's the Stephanie the Emily wants to know, the one who isn't so ashamed of being able to salsa that she only does it when nobody's looking.

It starts with gin.

 

3.

Stephanie takes instruction so beautifully, it's really a wonder that nobody's snapped her up by now. She's transparent as, which is helpful, but the real thing is that she just follows. Sure, she has an annoying habit of asking questions, but that's nothing that a firm hand couldn't fix in a few days, a week at most. That's something Emily wants so badly she sometimes can't breathe, though that could be the panic talking, a rare appearance of that ugly-headed beast. It could also be frustration that sometimes the questions just don't stop.

It means the world that she can say 'Stephanie, do this,' and hang up the phone and know it will be done, even if that comes with a good deal of kitsch and a side of nice that just seems so impossibly unattainable it can't be real. (Hanging up means no questions, and is faster but feels less satisfying. It is done when necessary, but it's better in person, when Stephanie has to stop herself talking and hurry to keep up.)

And if Stephanie were there, if she'd been able to ask this one in person, the inevitable questions would have been silenced and swallowed with a kiss (she'd seen Stephanie being so uncomfortable just that one time, and almost pulled her in, but it was too soon then, but she regretted it now). It would have been messy, and Stephanie would have kept trying to pull away and ask how long it would be, and why this was happening, and what else could she do; Emily would have stopped that by pulling her close, hands tangling that perfect shiny hair or tugging at yet another buttoned-all-the-way-up knit cardigan, and insisted on taking the moment for herself by making it physical and all-consuming until Stephanie went pliant and then kissed back.

Emily had imagined it so many times it was like it really happened, like they had had a thing and this was merely an interruption, a work trip, something that could be come back from.

Instead she watches the groundwork she'd laid go to waste, the space she'd made for herself erode, her world form around someone else, and she almost wishes things could be different.

 

4.

Emily wishes she'd marked Stephanie, somewhere Sean would have seen. She could probably have talked Stephanie into a tattoo, even on that first afternoon, but it wouldn't have been right for her.

Emily watches, her mind flashing on tracing Stephanie's hip with her nails, learning the best place to mark. There are plenty of places to hide it; Stephanie's fashion sense is good for that, at least, but it needs to be somewhere that Emily could touch, somewhere that it would rub while it was healing to remind Stephanie why it was there.

A butterfly, perhaps; it would need several lines, and she could make them one at a time, until Stephanie loved them just as much. The way Stephanie's come out of her shell, responded so nicely, really does deserve a reward.

More than once, Emily falls asleep and dreams of splitting Stephanie's skin just enough to scar, just enough to say 'I did this', and of Stephanie being still for it, _accepting_ it so gracefully that Emily believes it could be real.

 

5.

The ruthless, practical part of her takes over for a while after Emily ends up with so many moving parts that it was inevitably going to fall to pieces. It wouldn't be so complicated if it was just her, of course, but she's been running long enough that she deserves something for herself. Not just a drink, although good gin can be fucking hard to find at times, but something tangible and lasting that she's earned.

"There's another way," she says, but it's not the same Stephanie looking back; this one has her arms crossed and her chest forward and can walk on grass in heels. This one thinks before she says yes, and then a moment passes, another, and she asks if Emily is really sure because that sounds painful and doesn't she just want it all to end and go back to normal...

And yes, Emily would give quite a bit to go back to normal except right now she's not sure what that is; normal is compartmentalising and remembering who knows what and which person needs handholding and which one needs to be yelled at and which can be twisted and pulled into line with just a word or a look. Normal is wondering whether she made the right choices and what to do next and where the money will come from. Normal is living life on the outside, keeping herself carefully aloof and detached and had been fine until she'd seen a flash of yellow through the rain, or maybe it was the first sign of disconcerted babbling.

She wants to start over, somewhere with a proper summer, somewhere that she and Stephanie could have a house and a yard and an annoying little yapping dog that Stephanie would dote over and probably make clothes for. Somewhere stable and boring, somewhere safe.

Somewhere she wouldn't be looking over her shoulder, and people minded their own business. Somewhere her whole focus could be on Stephanie, on them and this.

She wants to take Stephanie's hand and run.

 

+.

Six months, a year; time compresses and expands and means nothing.

> _Hi moms, Stephanie here. Today, I'm going to show you how to make rice and veggie slice! It sounds plain and boring, I know, but it's great for packed lunches and picnics, plus, you can easily adjust it to send it to school without worrying about those pesky allergens! Before we get started, though, I want to thank all of you for reaching out. You're all family, and I'm so lucky to have you all, but I want you to know I'm doing fine..._

Stephanie has a side part now, though everything else is almost the same - the same shiny hair, the same way of talking without seeming to know what's coming next, almost the same kind of clothes, though Emily notes that the shirt isn't done up to the collar and it looks silky, not store-brand cotton. Little things, of course, but Emily is proud of them all the same, and the blue bracelet on Stephanie's right wrist most of all.

"Soon," she says, touching her fingers to the screen just before it flickers and she's logged out, her time done.

Soon, Stephanie will be _hers_ , and everything will be perfect, forever.


End file.
